Enemy combatant or American citizen?

Military tribunals or civil courts?

The charge against him, treason, is a death penalty offense for which no one has been executed since the 60s. This is going to be high in the news for a long time and will prompt some major constitutional questions.

Gadahn was just in the news yesterday for a new tape calling on Western Muslims to attack their own countries and suggesting targets. It will also probably feature prominently in media coverage.

This post: "Adam Gadahn arrested: Al Qaeda’s Americ…" was originally posted at Talk Islam - a crescent waxing eloquent. The RSS feed may not be used at other sites without permission. You can subscribe to this RSS feed for Talk Islam at http://talkislam.info/feed/

Pakistani police have arrested a man described as a “prime suspect” in the kidnapping of a five-year-old British boy being held to ransom for £100,000.

Sahil Saeed from Oldham, Greater Manchester, was taken from the Punjab region this morning after the family was held captive and robbed by five men armed with guns and hand grenades.

Sahil had been staying with his grandmother in the city of Jhelum and was due to return home today, the British high commission in Islamabad said.

Sahil’s father, Raja Naqqash Saeed, described today how his family were beaten and kicked during a six-hour ordeal that began when men broke into the house last night.

“They took me into the separate room and they tortured me,” he told Sky News. “They said: ‘We will take your son and you will have to pay £100,000.’

“They took my son. They were fully loaded with guns and hand grenades. All Pakistan police know about this, and the British Council.”

This post: "A five-year-old British boy, of Pakistan…" was originally posted at Talk Islam - a crescent waxing eloquent. The RSS feed may not be used at other sites without permission. You can subscribe to this RSS feed for Talk Islam at http://talkislam.info/feed/

(Hockey, rather than this.)

This post: "Pakistan-India meeting a ‘total sell ou…" was originally posted at Talk Islam - a crescent waxing eloquent. The RSS feed may not be used at other sites without permission. You can subscribe to this RSS feed for Talk Islam at http://talkislam.info/feed/

It’s safe to say that although there are many deep problems with Muslim marriage in the United States, the problems are generally different than those in Muslim cultures although I’m sure among some recent immigrants there must be more overlap.

This post: "Ayesha Nasir publishes a piece (for Slat…" was originally posted at Talk Islam - a crescent waxing eloquent. The RSS feed may not be used at other sites without permission. You can subscribe to this RSS feed for Talk Islam at http://talkislam.info/feed/

Reliable “pro-Israel” advocates cannot seem to grasp this, but almost all Western objections to this action have nothing to do with any sympathy for Mabhouh or his cause. Just as objections to drone strikes in Pakistan have nothing to do with sympathy for Al Qaeda or opposition to U.S. objectives in the region, Western protests over the manner in which Israel fights it enemies is almost always motivated by an interest in keeping Israel from making counterproductive blunders that empower its enemies and isolate it from those states that would otherwise be willing to support Israel. There is probably no better ally of genuine anti-Israel sentiment than the reflexive apologists for every mistake and crime the Israeli government commits. As the old proverb goes, “The yes-man is your enemy, but your friend will argue with you.”

This post: "Larison talking about US drone strikes a…" was originally posted at Talk Islam - a crescent waxing eloquent. The RSS feed may not be used at other sites without permission. You can subscribe to this RSS feed for Talk Islam at http://talkislam.info/feed/

Centuries ago the greatest poets of Persia, like Hafiz and Rumi, stripped away the mullahs’ religious pretensions and exposed their stupidity. Today, however, those same mullahs have taken control of the Iranian republic. The answer lies just as much in the domain of world politics as in theology. Khomeini developed the doctrine known as “guardianship of the clergy,” which gives the mullahs much wider powers than they generally exercised in the past.

—

Ayatollah Khomeini was quite content to keep science and Islam separate—unlike Pakistan’s leaders who have made numerous absurd attempts to marry the two. Khomeini once remarked that there is no such thing as Islamic mathematics. Nor did he take a position against Darwinism. In fact, Iran is one of the rare Muslim countries where the theory of evolution is taught.

Hoodbhoy hardly provides any better answers.

http://www.meforum.org/2593/pervez-amirali-hoodbhoy-islam-science

This post: "Contradictory? Centuries ago the greates…" was originally posted at Talk Islam - a crescent waxing eloquent. The RSS feed may not be used at other sites without permission. You can subscribe to this RSS feed for Talk Islam at http://talkislam.info/feed/

Mr. RASHID: Well, I think the very big question is why now? I mean, why have the Pakistanis now arrested him? Because his whereabouts were certainly known to the Pakistani intelligence services, the ISI, for many, many years. And if it means that the Pakistanis are now serious about reining in the Taliban, well, of course, that’s a very positive step. That’s something that NATO and the Americans have wanted all along.

However, speculation from Kabul – and I’ve been speaking to officials in Kabul – their speculation is somewhat different. The first is that, you know, the Americans, the CIA could have discovered his whereabouts and then, you know, insisted that the ISI arrest him.

The second thing is that it was very well-known for several months now, and I knew this personally, that Mullah Baradar was actually in touch with the Kabul authorities, holding talks with them through not directly, but indirectly through his representatives. They were meeting in Saudi Arabia, and he was also meeting with Kabul representatives in Kandahar, the major – the second city in Afghanistan.

Now, one speculation is that these talks were moving forward, and perhaps the Pakistanis arrested him because he was talking to the Kabul authorities above and beyond the Pakistanis, who are very keen to make sure that any dialogue that happens between the Americans and President Karzai and the Taliban take place with Pakistani mediation, Pakistani brokership, if you like.

GROSS: So what kind of information do you think that interrogators are trying to get now from Baradar?

Mr. RASHID: Well, you know, I don’t think that I mean, obviously, there’s going to be a mild sort of interrogation, if he knows where Mullah Omar is or Osama bin Laden or anyone else. But I think he’s going to be treated very well because I think in the long term, what both the Americans and the Pakistanis would want out of him is to use him in negotiations with the Taliban leadership.

I mean, one speculation is that now that he’s been arrested, he could be used much more effectively to negotiate with Mullah Omar and others because he could be allowed to meet with the other Taliban leaders, he could meet with Kabul authorities, he could meet with the Americans, et cetera. So I don’t think he’s going to be, you know, tortured or anything like that. I think he’s going to be kept in a safe house. He’s probably going to be interrogated about, you know, other leaderships, et cetera, and certainly the Americans will pursue him about the whereabouts of al-Qaida.

But I think this arrest will mean that we may well see a speeding-up of the negotiations between the Taliban and the Americans and others.

This post: "Ahmed Rashid was on Fresh Air discussing…" was originally posted at Talk Islam - a crescent waxing eloquent. The RSS feed may not be used at other sites without permission. You can subscribe to this RSS feed for Talk Islam at http://talkislam.info/feed/

Early in the video a group of “young cosmopolitan” Pakistani women at a pop music concert are portrayed razing America for imperialism and terrorism.

My response as an American is to just throw it right back in their faces.

The lack of self-awareness or self-examination is just amazing. America left the region after the Soviets retreated from Afghanistan in 1989. Gone. And in that time until 2001 Pakistan decided to play ‘masters of the universe’ and support the Taliban throughout its campaign to take over Afghanistan. Pakistan provided unlimited military equipment and supplies, it provided military intelligence and advisors that traveled with the Taliban forces, and tens of thousands of Pakistanis volunteered and fought with the Taliban in Afghan campaigns that had the character of ethnic violence in parts of the country largely inhabited by the Hazaras, Tajiks, Uzbeks, etc. And these educated middle-class Pakistanis are sitting around getting all indignant about America’s conduct?

Please…I wonder if any Pakistani veterans of the Afghan campaigns brought captive Hazara concubines with them back to Pakistan…

Related: Speaking of foreign fighters marines and Afghan troops have started their attack on the Taliban-held city of Marjah. A tribal elder reports most of the Afghan Taliban have already fled the area, but

Militant commanders from the Middle East or Pakistan have stayed on “and they want to fight,” he said.

I guess it will be foreign fighters versus foreign fighters then. Too bad the Pakistani and Middle Eastern fighters in Marjah won’t allow Afghan civilians to flee the city, thereby putting them potentially in the line of fire.

How nice of the Pakistani volunteers to come to Afghanistan and take the Afghans hostage…

This post: "I am so completely unsympathetic to Paki…" was originally posted at Talk Islam - a crescent waxing eloquent. The RSS feed may not be used at other sites without permission. You can subscribe to this RSS feed for Talk Islam at http://talkislam.info/feed/

I therefore, announce, while addressing the entire journalist fraternity, owners of newspapers, government and semi-government officials, including police department, FATA Secretariat and other government departments with whom my son Fawad Ali Shah is in contact, that my son is a blackmailer, who is using media as a blackmailing tool and those who are in contact with him or are involved in any kind of dealings with him will be responsible for their own losses. I also announce that I disown my son and expel him from the ownership all of my transferable and non-transferable property.

Pakistan Media Watch comment:

The question for The Nation is why, with all of this evidence against Mr. Ali Shah, they chose to publish his claims of being threatened by Blackwater and American diplomats including the US Ambassador to Pakistan – claims that were presented with no evidence other than his word, and which are immediately suspect given allegation by other journalists and even his own father of his manufacturing stories for attention and personal gain.

This post: "Pakistani reporter’s father disowns son…" was originally posted at Talk Islam - a crescent waxing eloquent. The RSS feed may not be used at other sites without permission. You can subscribe to this RSS feed for Talk Islam at http://talkislam.info/feed/

As grim as her killing may be, it will not be all that surprising if her murderer goes free. In a country where the entire top echelon of government, from the president to the prime minister, have been granted amnesty from corruption charges, murder cases, narcotics smuggling, kidnapping, and extortion so that they may lead Pakistan and pave the way for an obsequiously pro-American cooperation in the war on terror, why is anyone surprised that the rich and powerful are unaccountable? Why is anyone particularly horrified by the monstrous VIP culture that denies justice to the majority of the country and celebrates the injustices of the dominant, moneyed tastemakers?
We know that employing a child of school age in such demanding labor is cruel. We know that there is such a thing as minimum wage—even in Pakistan. We know that one can’t, shouldn’t be able to, get away with murder, but those things don’t really matter when one is above the law.

This post: "Fatima Bhutto describes the brutal murde…" was originally posted at Talk Islam - a crescent waxing eloquent. The RSS feed may not be used at other sites without permission. You can subscribe to this RSS feed for Talk Islam at http://talkislam.info/feed/